Banana bread is in the oven (had leftover banana from when my grandfather was in town, was invited to brunch on Sunday, therefore banana bread), so while I'm stuck in the kitchen I thought I'd post the pictures I took the last time I used the cookie gun.

The parentals bought me the cookie gun for Hanukkah and it is my precious probably the best gift I've gotten in a long time. It's finicky, but definitely worth the effort once you've worked out its quirks.

Cookie gun, put together. It's shiny.

You want a dough that's very, very stiff, smooth (no chips or chunks), and very greasy. The gun came with a few recipes, but once you know what the dough consistency should be, you can use other ones.

Filled cookie gun. The cleanest way to fill it is to attach the trigger and cylinder, load the dough into it by lumps with a small spatula, and then attach the stencil. You still wind up covered in butter. Kinky.

When you depress the trigger, one cookie's worth of dough is pressed out through the stencil, and is theoretically stuck to the pan. But sometimes the cookies don't stick (like this one), or only part of it sticks, so you have to scrape it back into the bowl and keep going.

You can get them down pretty quickly once you get some momentum going. Since you want a dough that's not going to spread much (otherwise the whole shaping process is kind of pointless), you can put them pretty close together.

A trick: you barely want the pan to be greasy at all, otherwise the dough doesn't stick. If you have to grease the pan, just spray the tiniest bit of cooking spray on the pan and spread it around with a piece of dry paper towel. But most doughs that are stiff enough and greasy enough won't need greasing at all. Do not use parchment paper unless you want to waste your time having none of the cookies stick at all.

Finished cookies, still on the pan. Note the light browning around the edges, and the fact that they don't spread at all.

Another hint: to remove the cookies from the pan, let them cool for two minutes after removing from the oven and then, barehanded, gently spin each cookie to unstick. This will keep delicate shapes from breaking, and allow for easy scooping and removing to racks. Be careful not to burn your fingers.

Recipes will be coming soon, both for cookies and for these to-die-for cheddar cheese crackers. And the cheese crackers can be made without the gun. :D